From the very start of the year our programmers have been searching out movies and watching each others nominations. St. Gloede, Fergenaprido, filmbantha, zzzorf along with new additions to the team: Onderhond and Sol and myself were again unstoppable. We feel certain that we have a very strong selection coming up this year. But first comes that time we call in the jury!
Before the programmers make their final choices from well over a hundred movies that passed our collective judgement, we invite all people who want to participate in the festival and can commit to watching (at least) the Main Slate of 10 movies + one other section of 4 movies, to sign up to the jury. In return for this commitment you can choose amongst you from the 37 movies that we have rated most highly what movies will end up on that Main Slate.
There is again a movie we want to single out for our "center piece' spot to give it the full attention of everybody, which is the bold conversation piece Caught in the Net. So that leaves 9 spaces for the jury to fill
What does a juror do?
- An official juror commits to watching the Main Slate, and at least one other section
- They have a say in creating the Main Slate from the below list of titles that are the very best from what the programmers have found
- They have the month of October to sign up as a juror in this thread and decide together on the 9 slots to fill
- This can be by discussion, voting or otherwise. Selections can be made on how much you liked what you already saw, how much you'd like to see a movie, or other criteria of your choosing: make the Slate as attractive as possible for all participants.
- During the festival they watch and discuss movies along with everybody else, although they could also work ahead a bit if they want before the festival has started
- After the festival they present their winners of the mainslate and each section, with as much or as little fanfare as they choose (but a small jury report would be a fun thing to add?).
NB.
- We have established as a rule over time that any casual participant who enjoys the festival and has watched a complete section automatically becomes an unofficial juror on that section.
- There are 10 separate sections next to the Main Slate, each containing 4 films. They are Animation, Arthouse, Asia, Africa, Latin America, English Language Independant, LGBTQ, Documentary, "Just Before Dawn" and Europe. The format of 4 movies per slate remains the most inviting we think, even if we found a lot more candidates for some of the slates this time. Now this will just give us more room to select only the best of the best of what we found.
So the window between the end of October and the beginning of the festival isn't that big. Please take your time and it is not to late to sign up even if you are reading this only for the first time while October is already well underway... but... the sooner there is a consensus on the mainslate from the jurors, the sooner the programmers can fill in the other sections and full promoting of the festival can get underway, so don't feel obliged to wait until the entire month has gone
I will be keeping an eye on this thread, and if voting on the movies for the Slate is happening in another way or another place, I hope to get notified when there is a final selection made.In my next post I'll present a list of 37 titles we created for the jurors to select their preferred and ideal festival Main Slate from.
Please join along by signing up as a juror
and mark the festival dates on your calendars!!
very cool 
STILL the Gaffer!
